Are We Asking Our Kids to do What We Can't Ourselves
Hello again! Let me tell you, it is A LOT easier getting a post out every week when 70% of it is telling someone else’s story. The thoughts are already formed, the words are pretty much there and your biggest job as the writer is just to listen and capture. I am of course referencing the wonderful journey I have been going on with my grandmother as I help her tell her life story in weekly snippets. But that is just a part of what I want this blog and outlet to be for me. I am also eager to share my own life, parenting dilemmas, and some tidbits of information from my current job and field of study. With that being said, let's dive into this week’s topic/idea: Are we asking our kids to do what we can’t do ourselves??
We’ve all seen it and we have all done it; Your kid is running around, literally bouncing off the walls, they are playfully yelling loudly, hitting toys against the wall or knocking things over, and as the parent we hit that point and: “JAMES! STOP YELLING! IT’S TOO LOUD”
or…
We are on the phone making a doctor appointment and our kid needs our attention NOW. Tugging on us, shoving a picture in our face, and we ‘snap’; “I NEED you to be patient, mommy is on the phone.” Flash forward to later that day when we are trying to get out of the house, and we repeat incessantly: “get your shoes on, grab your coat, stop doing that, why aren’t you listening, let’s GO, GO, GO!”
One more to really set the scene…
We are doing a million things; getting dinner ready, loading the dishwasher, unpacking their backpack and they start telling us about what they made or asking questions like “why do we think the word ‘wind’ is called ‘wind’ and why can’t we see it but we can feel it and some things we can see and not feel and how was it all made??? HOW?” And we try our best as we don’t look up from the sink and respond with something along the lines of: “uh huh, uh huh, oh that’s cool buddy, ummmm what a great question, I don’t know”. But then later that night as they are running around, finishing playing with their toys, creating a whole other world with their imagination we ask them to “do this and that, and this and that” and immediately follow up with: “WHY AREN’T YOU LISTENING!?”
The first thing I want to say about all of these scenarios is; They are SO normal and understandable and you are doing GREAT!
But I also want to point out that in some moments we are unable to do what we are asking of our kids. We YELL to tell them to stop yelling, we snap at them to be patient as they have already pushed ours, and we give them half of our attention, understandably so as we are juggling so much, but then expect them to listen immediately the minute we open our mouths. And my favorite, which is present in all of these moments, is that we ask them to control their emotions, their feelings, and their reaction,s when we struggle to control our own.
Step One; Acknowledge Our Starting Point
Now I think our natural reaction is to be hard on ourselves and think “Ugh! You’re right I have to do SO much better!” But instead, what if we stopped and understood how HUMAN all of that is and then gave that same acceptance and understanding that I want us to give to ourselves to our children as well. In regards to our own emotional regulation and awareness; we can’t expect our children to be fluent in a language that we only know a few words of ourselves. So how do we learn to “speak the language” so we can then teach our children?
To really understand our children’s emotional “starting point” we must first acknowledge and understand our own. So let’s take a moment to acknowledge where we are starting from and know that is OKAY. Instead of thinking THIS is what we must all do, (be patient, regulate our feelings, don’t yell or react, listen when talked to) what if we first asked ourselves:; do I even do this? WHY is it hard for me? And how can I start to model what I want my child to do?
Step Two; Let’s Learn the “Language”
There are a few terms I will reference: some I have recently learned myself, and others I have reshaped and redefined. These extra terms and tools have helped me immensely as a parent, a therapist, and as an individual. I not only want to share these terms but then take it to the next step to help put them into action.
Window of Tolerance: Window of Tolerance is a term coined by Dan Siegel, a well known author and clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. It is the ideal emotional “zone” or “window” to best function and thrive in. On either side of the zone is either “hyper-arousal”; an abnormal state of increased responsiveness to stimuli (fight or flight) and “hypo-arousal”; a low state of physiological arousal such as emotional numbing, withdrawal and disconnect between body and emotional awareness (shutdown). To summarize our window of tolerance is the realm in which we can problem solve, regulate, and successfully emotionally function.
Threat/Trauma: Defining trauma is a whole series of posts in itself. I would love to eventually dive into “what IS trauma” or dissect how trauma can look so different for each one of us. But for the sake of this topic we will define trauma as; any situation or experience that is outside of our window of tolerance.
A trauma is a situation in which our mind and body perceives a threat. We are not receiving it in the “zone” in which we can properly regulate, problem solve or process. We either go into shutdown or fight or flight.
To clarify; I am referring to a threat or trauma in reference to how our nervous system responds to what is happening around us. If our nervous system is in fight or flight or shutdown/freeze that is a trauma/threat response regardless to what the specific situation is.
Emotional Triggers: An emotional trigger can include memories, experiences, or events that cause an intense emotional reaction regardless of your current mood. Triggers might include reminders of unwanted memories, uncomfortable topics, another person’s words or actions, or even your own past behaviors.
Common situations that may elicit intense emotions may be:
-rejection
-unjust treatment
-challenged beliefs
-helplessness or loss of control
-being excluded or ignored
-feeling smothered or too needed
-insecurity
One of the first steps in being able to recognize our triggers starts with bringing awareness to what is happening in our body and around us when certain situations start to elicit a strong emotional response.
Acknowledgement: I will speak a little specifically to what this means and looks like to me. When I say acknowledgement, this is the second step after you feel “triggered”. Take a moment to acknowledge how you are feeling in this moment; where do you feel it in your body? What is your initial reaction? How would you LIKE to react and is that currently possible? The important part is to give yourself grace in this moment. Acknowledge that it is HARD, you are human and using the tools that you have been given for this situation. Really assess and acknowledge the entire situation, circumstance and emotions around it.
Rupture and Repair: Yet another term used by Dan Siegel; Ruptures are when the nurturing connection between child and caregiver has been broken. Relationships, like people, can bend without breaking. The most “important” part of rupture is the Repair.
Repair is when the caregiver can acknowledge to the child the rupture to themselves and to the child. This can be best done once you both have calmed all the way down.
Reparenting Yourself: To put it simply, reparenting yourself is giving your adult self what you did not receive from your own caregivers as a child. What did you need at that moment as a child? What did you want to hear? Feel? Receive?
Step Three: Becoming Fluent
So now what? We have learned the phrases but how do we actually put what we have learned into action and know where to start? The best way that I can explain it is to walk through another scenario and use my own personal experience. I will be highlighting the terms from above and then sharing how I put them into action, or didn’t! There are times where I have no part of me left to give so that is where the acknowledgement piece comes in and the repair piece. Once again the goal is not to tell ANYONE what they need to be doing but to understand WHY our kids aren’t doing it either.
An Easter Scenario
A few days before Easter my wonderful mother-in-law, (my bonus mamma), sent my son a premade Easter bundle. It was 3 boxes stacked with bunny ears glued on the top one and plastic clear wrapping holding them together.
Excitedly my son started unwrapping himself, got his kid scissors and started taking off the wrapping… without warning I heard a blood curdling scream. He ran into the kitchen and threw himself on the floor sobbing and hyperventilating. I thought he cut himself! I check everything I need to and then realize he had accidentally cut the bunny ears off of the top box “ruining” the decorative bunny box combo.
He continues to sob and has trouble breathing. He runs upstairs thinking he is going to throw up in the toilet. I try to hold him telling him he is safe and it is okay and he says “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, GRANDMA THOUGHT OF ME SO MUCH AND I RUINED IT. IT FELT LIKE I HURT MY WHOLE FAMILY AND THEN I WAS DYING TOO!”
-PAUSE- So let’s look at this scenario. He was so excited knowing his grandma sent him something, then accidentally cut part of the decorative box and now he is SCREAMING, HYPERVENTILATING and SOBBING. My first thought/wanted reaction is to be like “dude REALLY!? This is ridiculous, I mean sad, but no one is dying”. Immediately him hitting his window of tolerance and screaming and crying caused me to hit my own and I have no capacity for this. So I acknowledged it as well as I could to myself; I felt my heart racing, my body wanting to lash out and yell, and wanting to “fix” the problem. Not for him, but initially for me so this will STOP. In some scenarios I would have yelled and met his reaction but for this one I was able to take a moment and calm myself. I am safe, no one got hurt, this is loud and hard but I can do this. (This is where a form of reparenting yourself may come in).
I want to also take a moment to talk about what HE is feeling. So the idea that HE cut something that someone worked on and took the time to send him and think about him immediately “triggered” him to go straight past his window of tolerance and into a trauma/threat response. Is he experiencing a life threatening situation? No. Does his body and mind know that at this time? NO. He even said it so clearly “It felt like everyone was hurt and I was dying”. We know he is safe and fine but what we need to do first and foremost for our kids is BELIEVE THEM. Believe that they are feeling as if they are in a threatened state or that this is the WORST thing possible.
Me yelling and panicking myself yelling “this is ridiculous! I can’t do this!”, (trust me I have done this), would only increase the feeling of threat for him and also for myself.
-UNPAUSE-
While his nervous system is slowly coming down and his brain is taking in the whole situation; am I safe? What is happening around me? I just ride the wave. The more I try to control the worse I make it.
*Think about when we are angry and want to vent and a friend or significant other starts to problem solve we think NO! This is NOT what I need.* It is the same for them. So after I ride the wave, I acknowledge the situation and validate his emotions. “Your grandma sent you something so special and then it got broken. I saw you yell and cry and feel so sick to your stomach. That looked so hard and sad.”
-NOTE-
In moments where I do yell, and absolutely meet him at this own level of panic I add the extra repair step in. Below are the steps I personally take to repair and acknowledge the situation between my son and I once we have both completely calmed down.
After that some steps I take are;
1. I attempt to acknowledge what happened in a non-biased way; make observation statements. “You threw your shoes, and then I yelled really loud and went and grabbed your shoes.”
2. I ask him about his experience and thoughts around what happened. I acknowledge his feelings and experience.
3. I ask about how my reaction made him feel without becoming defensive.
4. I add an extra step that some approaches may disagree with but I do talk about my side. I talk about what was going on in my body, my own triggers and reactions. This is not my apology step (it’s coming) but where I explain how I was also feeling and how I may have also felt hurt or not listened to. To me this extra step is important because it displays that no matter what the age or circumstance we can still get hurt, feel as if we lose control, or don’t always know the next right step.
5. While it is human to feel hurt, get defensive and react, the “parenting/grown-up” piece comes in when we show we still have to take responsibility for our actions. This step is where I talk about my actions, what I regret and how I plan to react differently in the future.
6. Problem Solve; what are both of our plans for the future, what are his suggestions for how I can handle the situation differently and how we can work together.
The final step that we did together was problem solve and move forward. My goal as a parent is of course for my son not to hit a trauma response every time something hard happens. I would love for him to be able to acknowledge what is happening around him, be able to feel his feelings and then be able to process, problem solve and move on. I would like for him to have those tools and that awareness. Some kids and personalities do at this age, but HE doesn’t, and that is okay because 34 year old me doesn’t always either.
So once he was able to realize okay this is the situation and we can fix it; we came up with a plan. We made a headband out of the bunny ears for him and he wore it on Easter.
To Summarize
Wow, that was long winded but it felt important. So to wrap it up in a nice package, complete with bunny ears, here it is…
There are so many skills around emotional awareness and regulation that we expect our children to have and know but we don’t ourselves. Once again; we can’t expect our children to be fluent in a language that we only know a few words of.
The answer to this is to not start to blame ourselves or give ourselves less slack but to maybe give our children MORE. Using a few terms and strategies we can begin to understand not only where our own personal starting point is but to understand where and why our children are starting as well. Let’s learn to talk the talk before we can walk the walk.
AND maybe MOST importantly we are all DIFFERENT. Things that may not even land on someone else’s emotional radar may be a nuclear bomb to someone else. This is why it is so hard to not only expect our children to respond in a specific way but why we have to be realistic and accepting of our own responses. It doesn’t mean we accept the meltdown or panic and say “whelp it’s how we are” but give everyone involved the validation, tools and support that we all deserve.
I’ll bet on myself if you bet on yourself; because we are all worth it.
